


Personal Notes (15) Dreams

by longhairshortfuse



Series: Carlos's Secret Diary [15]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-29
Updated: 2014-05-29
Packaged: 2018-01-27 01:26:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1709954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/longhairshortfuse/pseuds/longhairshortfuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos and one of the team investigate the Whispering Forest and Carlos thinks of something to write in his dream journal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Personal Notes (15) Dreams

Botanists from the local community college called us yesterday about a pine forest that has grown just east of town. They said it appeared over the last few days and they have called it the Whispering Forest. They asked if we could take a look but without actually going there, which I thought was an odd request. I asked what that meant but the botanist who called just said that they wanted to know what was going on but the forest should not be approached because it was really weird and probably dangerous. 

If a Night Vale scientist calls it weird, of course I wanted to see for myself. Ell was busy with a couple of psychology projects she is running. One involves a perception filter that seems to affect anyone who stares at the sky for too long. The main symptom of the afflicted is a sense of apathy and insignificance. I know a few tenured professors who could use a dose of that. The other is a project she is helping the Night Vale Psychological Society with, about dreams. She has given each of us a notepad, an illegal pencil and strict instructions to note down detailed descriptions of our dreams first thing every morning. She even got Cecil to announce it. He mentioned that he had to make his own writing implements as pens and pencils are banned again after their brief period of legality for poetry week. I had Kirandeep drop off an anonymous package containing two pencils, a rubber and a sharpener with a sticky note on which I wrote "sweet dreams", disguised by being packed in a box inside a padded envelope labelled "Russian Dictionary". 

I asked Kirandeep to come to the whispering forest with me. We took a hands-free recording kit, laser rangefinder, climbing rope and a harness. I chose Kiran because she is the lightest although when I look at her the name "Priya" pops into my head and I feel a sense of loss and guilt, but I still don't know why. We planned for Kiran to wear the harness, rope in and walk towards the forest stopping every metre to record her perceptions and observations. I would pull her out at the first sign of danger. 

The edge of the forest was closer to town that we had been told by the community college botanists. Kiran put on the little head camera and adjusted the microphone. We did a quick check to make sure I could hear her in my headphones and she set off. Nothing happened until she got close to the nearest tree. Her audio recording went like this:

12m - Nothing  
11m - Nothing  
10m - The ground feels tingly, making my feet vibrate, feels quite nice actually. I want to take my shoes off.  
9m - Oh haha, stop it, that really tickles now, ooh that's better, mmmm.  
8m - Thanks, I like my hair like this too. Really? Are you sure? well okay then.  
7m - I'd love to, I could stand right here. Gosh that's a lovely shade of green isn't it?

I called out to her but she didn't respond. I tugged on the rope and watched in disbelief as she started to unfasten the harness. I yanked on that rope as hard as I could. Kiran fell over and I dragged her back to the 12m mark then darted in to pick her up and carry her back to safety. I have a black eye as evidence that she was not pleased to have been rescued. I bundled her into the car, drove us back to the lab. She tried to leave, saying "I want to be a tree" and is currently resting on a camp bed in the pterodactyl cage and under constant guard. It still smells of pterodactyl shit down there but otherwise she seems comfortable. 

I was going to play the audio file to Ell in case she could shed light on Kiran's experience, but when I played it back, at the end I was shouting Priya instead of Kiran. I have mentioned my name confusion to Ell before and her reaction concerned me. 

In his show, Cecil said there was a secret parade on Saturday. I remembered I have wondered about coded messages in some of his odder announcements and searched my lab computer for any files relating to decoding. There were none. 

This morning my alarm dragged me from sleep. I was confused, sweating with fear and unsure of where I was. I sat up, realised I'd had a bad dream, saw the dream journal and finally remembered my dream. I know that whatever my brain conjures up during REM sleep is between it and all previous sensory input, I have no conscious control over how my brain strengthens memory and filters data whilst my body is playing dead. Dreams don't have to make sense, or be linked strongly with reality.

The dream interrupted by my alarm involved me being held in what looked like a hospital room. Next to me was another patient, silent and still, dark glossy hair spilling over the pillow. There was machinery, something that looked like an old-fashioned EEG device with a chart-recorder output. Beside my bed was a tray containing a small syringe and hypodermic needle. My arms and legs were restrained. The lights were just a little too bright so I closed my eyes against the pain. The light dimmed as I felt another presence in the room. I opened my eyes just barely and saw Ell watching me, with me standing behind her.  
"He looks so weak now," said not-me, "he put up a fight but eventually told us where to look. It's not his favourite obsession who has them after all, we can probably let them both go."  
I heard a laugh, then Ell's voice, "What did you think of Kevin?"  
Another laugh, deeper.  
Stinging in my arm, the world swirling away from me, ringing in my ears. 

I resisted a sudden urge to call or text Cecil to see if he was okay. Calling someone I barely know because I thought they might have been hurt in a bad dream is insane.

I wrote this in my dream journal: I do not remember my dreams.


End file.
